Thursday, June 9, 2011

Had a good night sleep last night in my own bed...so nice. Awoke fresh and ready to finish some projects today.

I've been working on getting the colors right on this one for a while...Koh, who runs a shop in Japan, had requested a few bars painted to match the tye dye colors on the background of the blog. I've been putting them off while I tried to track down colors that were not too opaque, blended well, and gave just a hint of transparency to let the base white give a motteled look, kinda like when you dye a shirt. Who'da thunk I'd have to work so hard to find paints that met my needs?

Regardless, with the paints mixed and reduced in the cups, it's time to get to work...

I started by laying down a base of white, then beginning to airbrush in the yellow, allowing lateral streaks to extend out the bars to simumlate the creeping of dye...

Then the orange begins to overlap, dart in some lines, then fog the bases to blend them in...

A little red...

Then a splash of purple and blue, leaving the darker colors a bit transparent so that it looks like the dye soaked in at different rates dependant on the "twist of the shirt"...

After another long stretch, I got off duty last night and can now enjoy 5 days (hopefully uninterrupted) in the shop. Waiting for me when I walked in the door last night was this little box of goodies...

"FRA GIL LEE"...just like the lamp in A Christmas Story...

A box from Don and Matt at Anvil, what could it be?

Oh, hello Mr. Bendy :)

Don had asked me back at Nahbs if I would play with his new bender design for a while and give some feedback on what I liked, felt could be improved, or changes to make it a more streamlined piece. Who could resist such an offer, eh? The equipment came with both .75" and .875" dies and rollers, so I should be able to do some funky stuff with each. I've got two projects in mind right now. You can never have enough bending tooling around, as each device excels in different aspects of frame fabrication. These may prove to be a valuable asset in the shop to compliment the other units I currently use.

I hate to see what they'll cost me if I can't convince myself to send them back :)

Friday, June 3, 2011

It's been a brutal few weeks, with some long stretches of time at the fire department...last stint was five days straight before I was paroled to come home. The family life has been suffering as I've been absent a lot. Fortunately, I was able to spend the last two days at home and in the shop, taking a break to do some grilling so we could have a family meal together, that was nice. The weather has finally turned sunny, and so to have my spirits. Helps so much when the day starts with a smile.

A project that was suppose to be done in February were the team bikes for the 2011 season. Suffice it to say, I did not get them done and one of Steve's big races is tomorrow, so I put the hammer down and built his race bike so he can totally dominate at the Mohican 100k in Loudenville :)

Nothing special, just a 29er hardtail with chainstay mounted discs, curved and ovalized top tube, and curvy rear end painted in a white with gold pearl clear coat. Throw in a 28" Luv and a Disco Stick ti post and we have a fast looking bike.

Mitering the down tube...I mark each cut profile so that I can trim the tube to the closest possible length before heading to the mill to save a bit of machine time.

The front triangle fitted up. The top tube is rolled in a ring bend press with an ovalized die just for this application...

I caught a thread on MTBR's frame forum discussing frame alignment and subsequently, welding in a fixture. I've always welded as much of the frame in the fixture as possible, designing my fixtures for the greatest possible access while maintaining rigid and accurate contact points (headtube, bottom bracket, seat tube, dropouts). There is no substitute for an accurate, repeatable fixture, as it creates a solid foundation to build off of, and limits the required alignment necessary post welding. Typically, the only change I need to make once it comes out of the fixture is to spread the rear dropouts a millimeter or two dependent on how much heat I put into the stay braces. Everything else is dead nuts straight, just how we like it.

Although some areas are tight to get into, almost the entire frame is accessible. Here we area hitting the underside of the head tube...

Out of the fixture now, you can see the only area I still need to weld is the crotch on the left bottom bracket side. To do this, I use an internal heat sink to protect the shell from deformation...

All tightied up...

Steve wanted a "sexy rear end" with lots of curves, so I custom bent up these stays to be quite shapely...

Brazing the dropouts to the stays, fresh out of the torch. A quick soak and a touch with the Dotco and I'll have nicely finished scalloped ends...

The side profile shot; next are braze ons, media blasting, and then off to paint.

Steve showed up last night with a mix mashed box of parts that we slowly put together into the "mongrel". As with most last minute projects, rarely does everything go as planned. Last night, the rear brake line was too short so he's now running a front xtr and my rear Magura off my single speed. We had to do some modifying of the front derailleur to get the throw we desired, and he's running (by choice) a SRAM front shifter/derailleur and XT rear shifter/derailleur...in a 2x10 configuration. The best of both worlds? We'll see how he does Saturday :)

The really crappy 0100 in the morning cell phone shots...

It was a blistering pace for the last couple of days. Working on finishing a few tye dye bars for Koh (which have turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated) and then putting on my dress blues to serve in the Honor Guard for the opening cerimonies at this weekends Cancer Relay for Life.

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About Me

Hey folks, thanks for stopping by. So...what to tell you about Groovy Cycleworks?
Groovy Cycleworks was born back in the heyday of mountain biking, the early 90's, when bright colors, lycra, and cnc parts ruled the roost.
Learning from one of the true engineering masters of cycling, I acquired a love for clean lines, strong designs, and functional elegance.
I've been doing the "custom" thing since 1994; road, mountain, tandem and a full spectrum of forks, stems, etc...
Drop me a line and we'll see if we can build the bike of your dreams.
cheers,
rody